Please take a second to answer the poll below and give us an idea of how confident you are in the team. You can view the Fan Confidence Graph anytime via the nav bar above, or by clicking here. Thanks in advance for voting.

Given the team's current roster construction, farm system, management, etc., how confident are you in the Yankees' overall future?

Injury Zone: Brett Gardner left Sunday’s game with a bruised right forearm after getting hit by a pitch.

They kept saying he was hit on the wrist and it was a wrist injury last night on ESPN. A bruised forearm is significantly better news…

Doug

up 1 from an 8 to a 9.

riding a high after last nite’s come from behind win and our top prospects had very good weeks.

Gonzo

Should your confidence be swayed by oppenents’ state of affairs? I mean the Sox have injuries, and the Rays have in-fighting.

http://twitter.com/dpatrickg Dirty Pena

I don’t see why not. If we were in a different division, confidence would be 11 every week.

http://twitter.com/riddering Riddering

The recent Sox injuries are very pleasing, in a “this is war!” sort of way.

http://cid-e3a022289d65b5c0.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Assorted/foul.jpg Andy in NYC aka the Other Oofys

We’ve certainly dealt with enough; now it’s their turn.

Frank

Staying at 7. Middle relief needs to improve and I’m not sold on Joba as the answer in the 8th. And then there’s Burnett-hopefully Eiland can get in his head and straighten him out,=.

Rose

Been 8 for a while. They’re winning games but a lot of them still haven’t rounded the bend so you have to wonder when that’s going to happen.

Pitching has been great. Sabathia has done a great job and even though he’s been a well known ace for a while now…his accomplishments thus far have taken a back seat to Pettitte and Hughes. AJ and Vazquez have been nothing more than forgettable thus far. And Burnett will go down in Yankee history as having the worst month ever (for a starting pitcher) in the history of the franchise.

But like I said, we’re stilling winning games…which is all that matters in the end.

http://twitter.com/dpatrickg Dirty Pena

David Cone in April 1998

27.2 IP, 7.16 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, 34 hits, 10 BB

Andy Pettitte in May 1998

35.1 IP, 7.64 ERA, 2.01 WHIP, 49 hits, 22 BB

Verdict: Who cares?

Rose

Those aren’t nearly as bad as Javy and AJ’s haha…I’m not harping on them but they’re pretty awful nonetheless.

I mean I still voted an 8. With those 2 awful months from 2 entirely separate pitchers, we’re still the best team in baseball.

http://twitter.com/dpatrickg Dirty Pena

Yeah, I’m just saying not even one of the best teams of all time had everyone at 100% efficiency all season. Shit happens, we’ll get over it.

http://www.teamnerdrage.com dr mrs the yankee

AJ was historically awful in June. Like, nobody ever pitched a month that bad for the Yankees ever apparently. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that he was very very bad and/or being concerned about him going forward.

http://twitter.com/dpatrickg Dirty Pena

Chien Ming Wang was much worse in April last year. Sure he probably didn’t meet an inning requirement, but he would’ve almost had to throw two perfect games to get his numbers down to AJ’s.

I’m not saying there’s nothing to be worried about, it just doesn’t help AJ’s case that this horrific 3 game stretch of 10.1 IP/19 ER finishes off a month with 2 bad, but not horrific starts (12.2 IP/10 ER). It’s bad but I don’t think it should detract all that much from how successful the team has been.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that he was very very bad and/or being concerned about him going forward.

Yes and no. Yes, you should point out how historically bad he’s been. No, you don’t need to be concerned about him going forward.

Even though he personally has never been this bad before, either he or the Yankee braintrust will figure out what he’s doing differently (if anything) and he’ll be back to his old mercurial, unpredictable, CG Shutout one day/3 inning stinkbomb the next AJ Burnett he’s always been.

Rose

Also, David Cone was 3-1 with those horrible numbers and Pettitte was 2-3.

http://youcantpredictbaseball.wordpress.com/ bexarama

That just proves how dumb wins are.

http://www.soxandpinstripes.net JGS

So what you’re saying is…AJ lacks tRA+

JMK

In middle school, as a pitcher, my ERA was regularly in the double digits. But you know what? I never lost a game.

This isn’t an attack on you specifically, but a lot of people write stuff like this and I feel like commenting on it (for some reason).

If they were forgettable, wouldn’t you not know there stats/how poorly they pitched? They’ve pitched poorly, which is not forgettable. Forgettable is likely pitching average or slightly below something that has no reason to be memorable. Pitching horribly (or very good) is something you would (or at least I would) remember.

End rant.

Rose

It’s an expression. If it weren’t an expression…nobody would say anything is forgettable ever for the same kidns of reasons you’ve explained.

The worst pitcher we’ve had in the past half decade, Sidney Ponson, he’s not forgettable; we remember him because he’s the worst. We forget the utility infielder who barely made a dent because he didn’t play much and wasn’t particularly good or particularly bad.

20 years from now, you’ll still probably remember Sidney Ponson more than you remember Alberto Gonzalez. Ponson is LESS forgettable because he was so bad (as Javy and AJ have been for monthlong stretches this season).

Bad ≠ forgettable

Rose

No, bad doesn’t equal forgettable…but it is much closer in relationship than good is to forgettable. You can say forgettable as an expression to “I’d like to forget about this…” due to whatever circumstances there are. I don’t know why anybody would say they would like to forget something good that happened.

Kind of like the opposite of saying “What an unforgettable night!” you could say “AJ Burnett and Javier Vazquez performances are forgettable thus far”. Not meaning “I definitely will be forgetting these performances”…but more of a “I would certainly like to forget these…” Because in the same breath, that unforgettable night could very well become forgotten somewhere down the line.

You can say forgettable as an expression to “I’d like to forget about this…”

No, you can’t. Because the unsaid second clause that come after the ellipsis in your quote is:

“I’d like to forget about this… but I can’t.”

Things that you’d like to forget aren’t “forgettable”, they’re unforgettable. You’d like to forget them but you aren’t able to, so they’re the exact opposite of unforgettable.

It’s all about the ability to forget the event. Notably good or notably bad events are less forgettable than events that fall in the middle, average, typical, normal range. That’s the way the human mind works.

Because you couldn’t forget it. It wasn’t forgettable. If it was forgettable, you would have forgotten it.

Rose

So when and if somebody says “What an unforgettable night!” would you patiently wait for the point that they might actually forget that night or would you tell them how they’re wrong right away? haha

“The grass is always greener on the other side” is an expression as well…but (literally) the grass isn’t always greener on the other side…so not only is it not always but it may in fact be less green as well…making this famous expression even worse I guess lol

Thomas

Yeah, it’s cool. I know what you mean and knew what you meant (and actually didn’t notice it until I read it as a quote from bexarama’s reply). I know I’ve made the same mistake. For some reason, I was annoyed enough (misuse of stuff like this annoys me often) to comment on people using expression when there were probably more accurate ways to describe something.

Rose

No it’s understandable. It was confusing. I admit it.

Jimmy

My first ever 9, up from an 8. The Yankees continue to win in spite of sub-par season from the corners and AJ. Brackman & Laird are chewing up the minors and Montero starting to warm up. The Yankee’s overall future is rosy.

pat

I’m excited for this Seattle series. Lee and Felix, bring it.

Andy in Sunny Daytona

10, As always. Right now, even though the minor league system looks like this, it is operational.